News from the Votemaster

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Senatorial candidates Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and Pat Toomey (R)
debated
last night in Philadelphia. Each one called the other an extremist. Toomey used to trade currency swaps in New York and
Sestak is a retired Navy rear admiral, both as establishment as you can get, yet they disagreed on everything.
Sestak attacked Toomey for wanting to phase out social security; Toomey said retirees would be better off with private
accounts. Toomey went after Sestak for supporting the bank and car industry bailouts; Sestak replied these were necessary
to save the economy from the disaster the Republicans created.
Toomey said that trying people suspected of terrorism in civilian courts (which Sestak approves of) would endanger
American security; Sestak asked how come Toomey never complained when the Bush administration tried scores of suspects
this way.

Toomey has led the race ever since Sestak beat Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who switched parties last year to avoid
losing to Toomey in the Republican primary. However, the two most recent polls put Sestak ahead.
On the other hand, of the 127,000 Pennsylvanians who have
requested
absentee ballots so far this election, 50% have been Republicans and 42% have been Democrats.
From all indications though, the race is definitely tightening and is probably a tossup at this point.

The wave of Republican money coming from the Chamber of Commerce and various 527s funded by
Republican millionaires is
hurting even safe Democrats. For example, Barney Frank, a well-established representative
from a safe (D+14) district just loaned
his campaign $200,000 to defend himself against Sean Bielat, a newcomer to politics who has raised
over $600,000. Frank will probably win this one, but the fact that Frank has to spend money to
get reelected means he can't donate money to other Democrats who need it. Just about the only
Democrat up for reelection who is (1) rolling in money and (2) doesn't need it is Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who
just gave
$2 million to help fellow Democrats, but such acts are few and far between.
And Schumer has an ulterior motive: if majority leader Harry Reid loses his reelection bid, Schumer
is going to run for his job and he will then no doubt remind the recipients of his campaign funds
that when they needed his help, he was there for them.

Also of note is that retiring senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) has
$10 million
in campaign funds in the bank that he could legally give to the DSCC or other Democratic candidates but is refusing to do so.
This hoard has led to some speculation that Bayh, who is only 54, is plannning a future run for some public office.

CNN's chief election analyst, Bill Schneider, has written an interesting
piece
in which he compares Barack Obama to Michael Dukakis, saying both act like law professors and are out of touch
with how many Americans feel. Populism has a long history in American politics, going back to William Jennings Bryan
and even further back to Andrew Jackson, but right now the only people who seem to be connecting with the anger in the country
are the tea party candidates. Schneider points out that although Clinton is a very smart man
(he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University), he never talked about that. His great strength was his ability to
make people feel he understood their problems. According to Schneider the problem the Democrats have now is their
complete inability to convince people that they are angry at the ways things are going in the country. Of course,
that is hard to do when you are partly at fault. For example, people are furious at the banks for wrecking the economy
and no bankers have even been fired, let alone put in jail.

Unfortunately, polls in House races are still rare, but Penn Schoen Berland released
another 10 yesterday. Republicans lead in six of them, Democrats lead in two and two are tied.
But we still have 21 key districts that have not been polled yet, making it very hard to
make a decent projection of who will win the House. Nationally, the Republicans have an edge,
but winning the national vote doesn't mean you win, as Al Gore learned in 2000. There are
435 separate House races and each one has its own peculiarities.